Taiwan Church News
3396 Edition
27 March – 2 April, 2017
Church Ministry
On World Water Day, Environmental Groups Call Taiwan Government To Do The Sustainable Management Of Water Resources
Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong
To celebrate World Water Day, an annual event on March 22 set up by UN General Assembly since 1993, dozens of environmental groups urging Taiwan government to materialize the sustainable management of water resources assembled across Taiwan island on March 19.
Protesting against building a straight railway from Taipei to I-lan, a northern Taiwan environmental assembly was staged at the plaza before Taipei City Government. Citing an official statement, endorsed by environment effects review and issued on 10 February 2006 by Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), stressing such a direct railway’s irreversible damages to some ecologically sensitive areas and devastating impacts for passing through 9 fault lines, numerous underground streams, and precious archaeological sites in I-lan, Taiwan Water Resources Conservation Union(TWRCU) called Mr Ko Wen-je – Taipei City Mayor – to abolish the idea of building a straight railway immediately.
TWRCU urged Taipei City Government should have a long-tern vision to put the priority of the conversation of water resources above any short-sighted thoughts just for saving the traffic time with a few minutes between Taipei City and I-lan County.
Ms Nian Li-yu, chief executive of TWRCU, expressed her grave concerns for the future of the Feitsui Reservoir, the best national reservoir supplying 6 million people in northern Taiwan, would be destructively polluted and then destroyed if the construction of a straight railway is launched. Instead of building a straight railway, she suggested the mayor of Taipei City to protect the water resources for the citizens and guard against any enviromental impact toward the Feitsui Reservoir.
In the meantime, to restore the functioning of an ecological river system, many environmental groups at central and southern Taiwan also urged the government to abolish kinds of weir devices which are the major killer of the healthy flows of the river.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
